Charles Eliot Norton

Charles Eliot Norton (November 16, 1827 – October 21, 1908) was a leading American author, social critic, and professor of art. He was a militant idealist, a progressive social reformer, and a liberal activist whom many of his contemporaries considered the most cultivated man in the United States. Today, his name is borne by a series of lectures (Charles Eliot Norton Lectures) held annually by distinguished professors at Harvard.